Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Democrat Barack Obama and John McCain, the apparent token Republican candidate this year, square off for their final debate on Wednesday and I don't give a damn.

Why? Because there's no conservative in this election. Hell, if Obama wasn't such a two-faced, lying, Marxist little bastard, I might consider voting for the man. Both the Democrats and Republicans have managed to put candidates out there who have fully embraced socialism, making this election possibly even more depressing than the last two.

My question is this -- what the hell happened to the Republican party that I enthusiastically supported for so many years? Why does it seem that the Republican National Committee (RNC) is run by morons who have no idea what a conservative is supposed to believe.

I wouldn't expect the current idiot in the White House to have any idea who Edmund Burke was or to understand why Adam Smith was a pivotal figure in modern economic thought, but I would at least expect that bonehead to know what conservatives have historically wanted -- low taxes and to be left the hell alone by the government. George H. Bush was a brainless fool and his idiot kid is, surprisingly, even worse.

I'm absolutely amazed that the aforementioned RNC has adopted the George W. Bush strategy of wandering around making decisions that don't appear based on any political philosophy at all. Hell, Bush and the gang that somehow grabbed control of the Republican party seem absolutely incapable of approaching anything with the clear, rational approach for which the pragmatists who ought to be in control of the RNC are known.

My Republican party is now overrun by bumbling morons who aren't conservatives at all. Here's what I mean -- conservatives have traditionally sought to keep government small, keep taxes low and weren't known for going off half-cocked and jumping into wars for the hell of it. If you don't believe me, bear in mind that the Republicans remained doggedly isolationist in World War II until the Japanese showed up and bombed Pearl Harbor.

Those radicals, indeed, tended to avoid advocating expensive, society-altering wars until it was in the nation's interest to do so. You wouldn't your traditional, isolationist Republicans running around in Iraq, Bosnia (i.e., Clinton's war that served no American interest at all) or throwing troops all over the globe for the sheer hell of it.

No, Republicans don't behave like conservatives anymore and that point was made completely obvious to anyone paying attention when both Bush and McCain were involved in that little pile of socialism that has been euphemistically described as a bailout. I'd expect Democrats to be chomping at the bit to have the government used borrowed money to take equity stakes in banks that deserve to fail, but Republicans?

I'd expect Democrats to talk about how the "free market is broken" and start figuring out ways to have the federal government wade into the financial world and make a bigger mess of things, but even I -- a man who thinks the Bush family should have stayed in Texas and left the rest of us alone -- was stunned to hear a Republican president utter those very words. Yes, Hillary Clinton tried to nationalize the medical industry back in the 1990s and was slapped down, yet Bush advocates the same kind of insane screwing around in the financial industry and people who claim to be Republicans nod their heads in agreement. What the hell is going on here?

It's like living in damned Bizzaro World. The party that's supposed to fight against such anti-capitalistic nonsense is joining the rest of the leftists to such a degree that it's getting hard to figure out who the Republicans and Democrats are anymore when it comes to economics.

Here's an example. Obama advocates every "the government will help you scheme" on the planet and is called a socialist by the right, yet McCain promises to have the government step in and help renegotiate mortgages for homeowners in trouble. What, exactly, is the difference? Does it seem disingenuous for a party that's advocating a bunch of government meddling to blast another party that's advocating, well, a bunch of government meddling?

Yes it does. And that's why McCain is about to get his ass handed to him by Obama. And, yes, Obama being in the highest office in the nation is a very bad thing. I don't give a damn how many position papers Obama has on file or how many times he swears his "help you out" programs will be paid for by closing up tax loopholes and hammering the rich. Someone's going to have to pay for all that altruistic crap and you can bet the middle class -- the same group that gets screwed to the wall with increased taxes whenever the stinking feds go on a spending spree -- will have the joy of paying for it all.

Obama is just another enemy of the working class and there's not a damned soul out there who has the ideological focus to stand against him. The Republican in the race, in fact, has already shown he loves burning through cash, too.

The Republicans have betrayed about 300 years of conservative thought and are drifting around like unfocused buffoons to such an extent that Obama's thread-worn, Marxist garbage has actually gained him a following. the Democrats are focused and they are honest-to-goodness liberals whereas the Republicans are simply drifting around aimlessly. When they aren't agreeing with the left, Republicans these days are busily finding their own ways to grow the government and waste money. It's incredible that a candidate who ought to adopt "from each according to his means, to each according to his needs" will likely win an election in the United States simply because there's no conservative in this election.

So, here were are in 2008 being taxed into oblivion and dealing a government that seems to grow exponentially intrusive, expensive and, well, nannyish with each passing year. And there doesn't seem to be a soul willing to stand up and do a thing about it.

I still maintain that McCain is the lesser of two evils here, but he's really not worth a damn. It's damned sad that we've gotten to the point in our history where these two clods are the best we can do.

5 comments:

I'm typically rather left-leaning, but I'm kind of wishing that the Republicans had let Ron Paul run instead.

I think the government that governs least governs best, and judging by Ron Paul's position on things like states' rights, I think he would have done much better than anyone else coming to the table at the moment. I took a quick read over Paul's positions a while back and the only thing I could disagree with him on was his stance on things like abortion and stem cell research.

I've said it for a long time though that you've basically got neo-conservatives looking out for the interests of the rich, and the democrats looking out for the interests of the poor (and by poor I don't mean working class families doing it rough, I mean welfare trash) and no one looking out the middle class.

If you ask any American citizen to describe their vision of a perfect America, it almost always comes down to working hard, buying a house, raising a family and being hassled the least by the government. Neither party can claim any credit for anything remotely related to that dream.

I'm actually counting my lucky stars that I'm ineligible to vote - I don't have to take part in this train wreck this November. :)

I've always been right-leaning and I pretty much agree with you here. So, what does that tell us?

Anyway, I'm simply disgusted that both parties seem intent on growing the government as much as possible and hammering those of us who slog off to work every day.

You are very correct in what seems to be your point here -- neither party does a good job of representing the majority of the nation. I keep waiting for the Democrats and Republicans to go the way of the Federalists and the Whigs, but I'll be damned if the two parties don't keep kicking.

I almost wish I couldn't vote, either. I'll go ahead and do it, anyway, as I always have (I've got a bachelor's in political science, after all) and I am very interested in my local elections. McCain will carry Arkansas for sure and certain, so I doubt my casting one more vote for him will matter much.

Good thing you got that off your chest before you exploded. It sounds as though you are more of a Libertarian than a Republican and certainly not a Democrat.

As for the move toward socialism that is represented with the bailout, I think it is awful and totally out of step with the basic philosophy of representative democracy and the intent that motivated the Revolutionary War against British oppressors. I am very liberal on social justice issues but pretty conservative on fiscal issues. I am appalled that the Republicans have become consumed with social issues and lost focus on fiscal conservatism. Being socially liberal does not mean you have to believe in free spending social programs. Apparently the conservatives have dropped the ball on fiscal conservative principals and are choosing to put most efforts into social issues.

The Democrats seem to at least be on their traditional message whereas the Republicans do seem to be wandering aimlessly. It has often been said of Democrats that the base is too large to form a cohesive front, Bush and the mounting number of killed American soldiers in the War in Iraq have given the needed rallying point; and the current economic crisis also provides a rallying point. It seems the Republicans have surrendered most arguments that could help cohesion and are now pulled in so many different directions by so many disparate factions. Where is the message? Hell, what is the message? Continued war? Socialized banking? Drill baby drill...Drill down the zealots who usurp the focus from the fiscal and security role of the government in favor of some social reconstructionism. Until Reagan brought the religious faction into the Republican party to win in 1980, the Republicans concentrated primarily on small government and fiscal conservatism. Now the social ideologues of the Republican party are more akin to the social ideologues in the Democratic party, albeit with a different stance on those issues. It is way past time to put the focus back on fiscal issues where it belongs.

Rich -- Actually, I've always considered myself a states rights Republicans with more than a few nods to the philosophies of Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. Libertarians, in my view, simply go too far and would put a system in place that could not be maintained. When monopolies form, workers are little more than slaves and discontent grows, what happens where there's not a strong government to correct those conditions and protect society from the complete anarchy or terror-filled police states that tend to result when the masses are furious? Some authority, then, is necessary to a viable, functioning society.

As for Reagan, it is true that he did bring the evangelicals into the Republican party. However, bear in mind that he focused primarily on the economy and foreign affairs. Those who followed Reagan are the ones who got bogged down on social issues and skipped over the issues that most Americans actually do care about. That is where the Republicans have failed -- a good number of them will argue all day long about abortion and gay marriage, but simply have no answers to questions such as what to do when daddy's job goes to China and an entire family is starving. Taking a crack as such meat and potatoes issues used to be the forte of the Republicans, but what the hell are they up to now? Wandering around lost, really.

In other words, you are completely right on this point -- Republicans have abandoned the very fiscal issues which were the party's strength and are about to get hammered as a result.